As a former elder shaolin monk with 3,000 years of experience meditating on top of mount everest, i can confirm that this is how karate tournaments are back in my days.
I fought as a black belt in open karate tournaments back in that era. The only protection we wore was a cup, and get this, sometimes groin was a legal target. I've got the trophies and healed injuries to prove it, lol Thank you for posting this.
Do you know if the tournaments that allow groin strikes as a legal target still exist? I learned that rule with my dad who used to train back in the 70's. I think I attended a few small tournaments that allowed legal groin strikes about 20 years ago, but I haven't looked into it since. You are the first person I have seen in recent years who even mentioned that rule!
@@shot87 I don't think it has been legal for a long time. When I think back, I didn't question it. Seriously, I'm not very big and having the groin a target evened things up for me with bigger opponents. I could do what we called a flip kick off the lead leg with no tell really fast. I remember learning it from my instructor, of course I wore a cup. He said, "Ok, I'm going to kick you in the groin with my lead leg. ready?" And when I said I'm ready, BAM he hit me! I learned to block and do that kick real fast, lol
@@Docinaplane That's a shame they did away with it. For a light-contact to semi-contact sparring, it can be practiced safely with a cup and it's an incredibly underrated technique.
This is a legit tactic. Some years ago (when i still attended a karate club for giggles) one of the competing karateka told me he won a match by eating a shot and pretended it did hurt.. nuf said.
@@ScytherOnSpree This actually happened in Tokyo Olympics. The gold medalist got dominated the whole match, but he jumped into a kick head first and got KOed so he won gold. What a joke.
@@shot87 I'm telling you the olympics ruins all combat sports, see what happened to TKD, real shame. I'm terrified to find out how olympic muay thai will look like at this rate.
@@jonpaul748 yeah, but they keep getting in my way then I'm taking care of buissiness. If OSHA finds out there's scantily clad women running alongside/jumping onto my fork lift, with no hardhats, I could very much loose my job!
The transition from Traditional Karate to Sport karate gutted and destroyed 99% of styles. It removed the pursuit of body conditioning and the technical instruction of attacking of manipulation of the weak points of the body to have an advantage in combat. Modern karate is now a high energy themed dance with no real world practical application. I don’t blame schools for going down this path… financially family and kids karate or sport karate is great for a semi injury free hobby that people enjoy and will continue to pay tuition for long term … average white to green belt…. But it is sad that most traditional sensei gave up in the 90s as the new sport karate dominated. Rent on dojo space and students that want black belts and trophies alienated the traditional karate world. I trained for 20 + years 5 nights a week in a shotokan style devoted to pushing through pain minor injuries and fatigue with body and mind conditioning. At the beginning it seemed almost sadistic makiwara training ,heavy bag , getting hit many times every lesson, bunny hops, when fatigued full contact sparring to the body …light to the head (in theory) and ending in kata and bunkai. In those days there were no coloured belts Shiro obi was 8th kyu through to ni kyu …. Chairo obi 2nd kyu to Shodan and Shodan was graded in the Honbu Dojo in Japan. Tournament’s were a laugh as a lot of our students were taking out open divisions after being pre judged on their obi colour…. Oops too much to say here.
@@lea-rw5cb I train in an Okinawa lineage dojo and we do sparring but 99% of techniques are derived from Kata. e.g. Naihanchi Kata is the template for CQB wrestling. I've started training in Shotokan and took part in tournaments. Now Shorin Ryu (origins of Shotokan) are like a different world for me. All strikes are more aggressive and blocks are actually strikes to the joints. Every counter includes strikes and kicks to the joints, eyes or groin. Not pretty but effective. Nothing for Olympia but great for a bar brawl. ;)
@@jeffgrimm my son does karate he's 8 but as the sensei told me there not allowed to teach karate the way its meant to be taught its just like a dance lesson now leaving students bewildered at what all these moves actually do as they don't spar at all
So ah, if you wanted to open up a dojo, I'd definitely bring my kids to it b/c 2 months of this fake stuff was enough for me to say this is a waste of time and money.
I think it's how the parents think about it these days. If you don't listen to the parents' cautionary needs you'll lose alot of their students. If the dojo has decent insurance maybe they'll be fine, as long as there's customers that want to pay them enough to cover that.
So your telling me, in a sport where you fight people, and you don’t wear any head protection, that you’ll get disqualified for getting a KO? What a joke
No. In the wkf rules it states that kos disqualify you as do even simulating (without making contact with) knees, elbows, hooks, and uppercuts, hook and axe kicks with the heel (but back kicks with the heel are OK). It's ridiculous!
@Ghost yes, control yes yes yes In self defence you control your strength so you don’t hurt your opponent and let him beat you up just because you controlled your strength💀
I practiced karate for a while with a master who was a direct "disciple" (as it is called here), of the Japanese Karate master (Tetsuji Murakami) that first came to my country (Portugal), back in the 60's (I believe). My master, as well as a lot of other disciples of Murakami, completely abhor and refuse Karate tournaments because Karate, as taught to him by his master, is not supposed to be about scoring points. It's about utterly annihilating the enemy before you as fast as possible, as efficiently as possible, if you have no other choice but to fight. The reason why Karate combat evolved into what it is now is partly because the people who practiced under the tutelage of the old masters, were basically destroying each other's body in tournaments. I vaguely recall a story told to me by the disciples, that around the 70's/80's in which a french karetaka (i believe he was french, don't recall if he was a master), had such devastating and powerful kicks that he fought against another man, kicked him in the torso with a Mae Giri, and the man shortly after fainted and, later that day, died from a ruptured liver. Point being, this martial art, like most martial arts, are meant to kill if needed. PS: our style of Kumite was very interesting, and highly reminiscent of Kenjutsu or Kendo. Strikes were made as penetrating spears, seeking to pierce through your enemy. I firmly believe that a lot of the old disciples could either seriously maim or kill someone with their punches. My sensei himself has some of the most fluid movements I've ever witnessed. You can read more about it here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shōtōkai
@@albertogomes167 (From your name I assume you speak portuguese, but I will write in english so others can understand as well) Many sorries for the late response. My master's name is Carlos Costa. :)
Ok but the point of tournaments this days even if its to score points, it gets you almost the filling of a fight which happens to be very useful when it comes to a real combat, and since you cant just obliterate each others in training (I suppose) this is the only way to get as close as that...because think about it, what does it matter if you know how to paralyze a man with the tip of your thumb if you freeze during real aggressiveness...don't get me wrong tho, I completely despise what the west did to martial arts, but we gotta use everything we can this days :/ my point is, even if your master says that his karate is not to get points, there'll still be a LOT of doubt when it comes to a real fight
It was already starting to happen back then. 1989, our club was very traditional, Sensei was a student of Kanazawa, proper dojo kun, to strive for the principles of excellence. We just trained for training’s sake, but were expected to enter the national tournament. At 4th kyu I was eligible, so was part of the team. Second round of Kumite, I was up against a 3rd kyu who was very fast, but no kime, and was scoring points off me with strikes that wouldn’t tear a wet paper bag. Decided I wasn’t having that, so kazamae tsuki’d him right on the chin a couple of times from long distance, snapping his head back both times, his eyes changed completely, clearly never been actually properly hit before. Got a warning from the ref, but didn’t understand why. Next start, Mawashi Geri, and it knocks him right off the mat. I get disqualified for excessive contact, walk back to my club, thinking I’ve let them down, but it was the opposite, nodding approval from all the Dan grade members, who had watched it. Time came for one of them to fight, and he just kept gut kicking his Dan grade opponent, again and again, because he had discourteously criticised the scorekeeper in a previous bout, Mae Geri, Mae Geri over and over until he folded. End of lesson. He later remarked that the other clubs all train for this all year, we just train. Much worse was taking my daughter in 2020 to her first Taekwondo tournament, where she was beaten by a girl who hopped around like a flamingo, but couldn’t just take out her supporting leg, because it’s not allowed? She quit, as she realised it isn’t useful in the real world, and she might as well go to dance classes with her sister.
You probably know this, but dancers make killer martial artists. One girl I trained with in boxing had a punch like a truck because she easily put legs behind every punch.
Toss her into a Muay Thai class, ain’t no pullin blows there! Haha. There’s a good video on YT somewhere about how martial arts have been made more accessible over the last 30 years or so at the cost of a lot of styles essentially losing their effectiveness. Not everyone can handle the grueling training martial arts requires. Hell sometimes I have days where I ask myself if I can still handle it lol. But there’s still lots of good places to learn, just gotta search around a bit.
@someone ITF still maintains its traditional roots while the WTF... well let's just say they've seen better days. It also doesn't help that the WTF is the organization with the most reach.
As a professional kazoo player with no experience at all, I for one, love being gainfully employed providing the backing tracks for the current form of karate.
My father did karate for years, even was an instructor for some time. His master was an actual traditional japanese sensei, a pretty old guy, and he tells me stories about the brutal discipline they were taught, about getting out of the dojo with bleeding knuckles/sheens, but also, a sense of pride. He might have not participated or won any tournament, but you can feel his mental fortitude in his character, plus, he remains surprisingly flexible in his 50s. Turning martial arts into sports is the worst thing you can do to them. Martial arts are just paths you can take to grow as a person.
no, just the rules are not good, Karate rules IMO need to similar to Combat Sambo, Continuous , Full Contact (at Black Belt at Least) , with 20 second clinch time standing for elbows and even standing sub attempts and 30 second ground time for GNP and Submissions
I practiced taekwondo so i accepted if I'm biased. The old school taekwondo movement is more aggressive than old school karate, but both new schools feeling is just same, it both doesn't have this fighting feeling
@@and12345.conan. I agree . The tournaments now are semi contact . Back the day was free for all didn’t matter . The fact I had to wear the chest guard drove me insane
As a former US marine who fought in D-Day during WW2, I can confirm this brief video was exactly how we fought in hand to hand combat against the Nazis, I chopped them CHA CHA CHA
I actually stopped doing karate because my dojo was one of those old school hard-core places. After witnessing a few concussions, broken legs, torn ACLs, broken fingers and injuring my own elbow pretty severely I just decided it wasn't worth the wear and tear on my body. I was in the army for 6 years and that put less wear on my body than 3 years of karate.
I was in an even badder place with ninja school next door neighbour that throw ninja stars on master Fido he went down killing their master in black arts one on one magic. Dojos pet dragon also had lasor eyes
I gave up morris dancing and took up competitive combat metal weapons re-enactment because it was less liable to result in injury. Actually true. I had damaged neck, knees, wrists, fingers and achilles tendon from the morris, worst I got in re-enactment was bruised ego and a mild concussion from falling off a seige ladder. Of course - my fault for dancing the morris with a side made up of agricultural workers, builders and craftsmen! Lord alone knows what morris was like back in the 19th century, when it was ALL farmers and they were used to throwing sacks of produce wieghing a hundred weight each up onto a horse drawn wagon. There was an old bloke used to come down the pub years ago - he'd been a farmer all his life, starting before WW2, and in his mid nineties he still had wrists thicker than my ankles.
I trained and fought in tournaments for years. I'll never forget when Daniel LaRusso crane kicked me the head in the '86 All Valley Karate tournament Final. I thought to myself "Johnny, may Cobra Kai isn't the Dojo for you anymore...". Years later we are actually training together. It's a long story.
Karate point fighting was based on fencing, and you can see that here, except in fencing it sorta makes sense to stop after each hit given the lethality of a sword.
Except fencing is fencing and punches are punches so it went wrong with this japanese false conception. Let the men fight, KO is KO, and a plain punch is a punch, give them bonuses, and count in the end who is better but let we stick to sports which are closer to reality and end see who falls down. Karate stoped to be sport of reality.. The world is making fun of one deadly art of fighting. Oyama saw this...-In the end...in kyokushin you don't punch in the face. Is that normal....in the end BJJ won...-Let we see what is the best... otherwise,Point of martial arts is missed .And why art is invented in the first 🥇 place ?
The reason why in karate you stop is that originally you had only "ippon shobu" matches, which means you need to score a clean technique to earn ippon. It is called "ichigeki hissatsu" (One hit, certain kill). The idea is to KO your opponent in a real fight. That used to be a goal in karate training. That is why they used to train on makiwara. I agree it is more theoretical and in reality, it is much harder but I do like the concept. However, with sport karate they added more points and it lost its purpose. I think the idea of knocking out your opponent with a single blow is good but not so easy to perform in a real combat scenario, especially when wrestling is introduced.
I love how im just looking for genuine opinions on the comments, and instead all I see are "funny" people reapeating the same joke everyone is doing and thinking "wow im so funny and original man"
@@Dutchboy266 because he's not a kid anymore, derp. he WAS a 90s kid. he's NOT CURRENTLY a 90s kid. fucking heck, mate. Talk about incorrectly correcting people. You're going on the facebook group for this one. Also here's the pic just in case you try to delete this so other people cna see. i.imgur.com/J9QhCox.png
When I was a child I attended a shito-ryu karate school, and although we had protective gear, we were told to hit HARD when sparring. Because it's part of learning to take a hit and physically condition yourself for a fight. I can't count how many times I've had the wind knocked out of me from a strong kick to the back or punch to the gut. My sensei was known for making everyone do unfair sparring matches. He would keep it close to the same belt level but wildly different ages weights, and heights. Because I'm real-life, there's no such thing as a fair fight.
Ye and in my karate class I’m told not to hit hard, Bcs I’m too “strong” (i was at my skinniest), and then I ended up getting disqualified in 15 country tournament Bcs I kicked him in the face too hard and he started crying
As a retired jiu jotso and karateé master chief with 75 yrs of “wax on and wacks off” experience I can confirm this brief video is exactly how all tournaments went down.
I'm thankful my instructor, sets his own opinions and clear fighting techniques to teach for different types of situations or compeition and fighting, as well as learning the traditional roots of Okinawan karate, esentially making a mixed style of Karate that incorporates modern American and Okinawan karate.
The sport has become pussified. I remember back in the 80s when I used to compete, karate was everything in the valley back then. I had to win one tourney with a broken leg bc my opponent cheap shotted me on orders from his sensei. But I pulled it off with a sick ass crane kick to win the final point.
Ever since they realized they can make more money doing kids classes, they made sure to keep the parents from seeing their kids get hurt - so they turned karate into a game of competitive tag
I used to compete in the 90’s when the Liverpool red triangle club, Marshall street etc were the guys to beat. The rules meant you could hit pretty hard as long as you didn’t draw blood. So the best target was the throat, which brought its own set of disastrous consequences. Leg sweeps were bread and butter and concussions were standard. The era made tough fighters but it’s easy to see why things have changed.
I practiced karate five years, judo for one year and tae kwon do for about 11 years. Although I am only 33, I can say that sparring was much more brutal early on than now. I remember going home every week on sparring night with bruises. The discipline and grit, nonetheless, do make you mentally stronger. I think the brutality may have been toned down in places such as the US, where liability is such a pain for schools. In addition, injuries were also quite common, and that can affect your livelihood if it is serious if your main job is not being a martial artist.
@@ShadowzKiller read more carefully? bro, when I read, I have my shotgun right next to me, both barrels loaded with glocks, which themselves are loaded with knifes. they not gonna get me. no one is more careful during reading than me
Make no mistake. "Old school karate" was not always non stop action like the video suggests. Especially in high level competitive matches, karateka were still pacient and very feinting like fighters. And yeah, knocking your opponent out was forbidden even back in the day. Not to say that it wasn't allowed to follow through a bit more with the strikes. Nowadays, it's a more skin-touch type of semi contact.
@Ricardo it depends on the circumstances. Doctors and the ref get to decide wheter or not the fight should stop. Whenever a karateka gets downed, the ref starts the count and calls in the doctor. Match is over if the karateka cannot get back to his/her feet under the count of 10. From there, the doctor, the judges and the ref will determine wheter the karateka was able to resume fighting, therefore calling to stop due to mubobi, or not. The olympic +75kg final was obviously stopped because Ganjzadeh was knocked out, so the Hansuku was to be expected. In another scenario, Feryal Abdelaziz (women -68kg) was disqualified in the final match in the Moscow Karate 1 League last year. Though Abdelaziz demanded the bout to be stopped due to her injury, she was not considered to be incapacitated to continue by the judges. That's why the opponent, Silvia Semeraro, was declared the winner due to forfait. A clear case of mubobi. At the end of the day, it differs from case to case.
Not every fight has to be non stop action. Of course counter fighters are going to be patient. This is true even in full contact fighting sports. The point is even though competitions were point oriented in nature there was a level of toughness and realism, not docking points for a good strike. If a point fighter back then went into a real fight they could hold their own.
@@BruceWayne-fj9bm obviously my comment was directed to the more casual fans. Many people probably watched Cobra Kai and just looked for karate vids on yt
That is why I prefer full contact Karate. I personally competed in semi-knockdown, which means gloves + shins protectors (and of course mouth guard) with strikes to the face banned. It put heavy emphasis on durability, endurance and strength. I have to give huge props to our sensei, who was (still is) an amazing master. He raised and trained many medalists in polish and european tournaments. Which is even more impressive if you consider the fact, that our dojo is an open dojo. Everybody could join, no one was forced to compete and still he had so many successes.
That KO was actually beautiful perfect snappy reaction to the dude going full tilt forward with an open guard. Really a shame something like that isn't rewarded. Not fearing hard hits arguably encourages not guarding :(
This is what it was like when I started in the mid 80's! I'm all for pads, safety etc. but the warrior mentality has been lost on many in todays society. Many are at the extreme ends of the spectrum. They are either too soft🤦♂️ or have a no respect MMA type mentality. Warrior culture needs to make a comeback in my opinion. 🙏💮
I could not phrase that better myself. The warrior mentality is being lost in exchange for "competition and points". Many people forget martial arts like karate was born out of war. When Japan invaded Okinawa.
As a former Daoist martial cultivator, i can confirm that this is exactly how karate fighters fought back in my humble days. These new karate fighters are courting death.
I need a formation pill to rebuild my meridians, i so am desperate that i'll trade it for the mountain and river painting. Please mp me and i'll send you my adress in nigeria, will bring the painting to you directly when my cultivation is restored. I'm a disciple from the heavenly sword sect and you have my word.
Yep, as a martial arts practitioner, I only "participate" in "non-formal" matches. The rules for the sports aspect of martial arts only destroyed the form and reflexes that we've been training from the very beginning. Without being disrespectful to any sides; nowadays, ultimately you have two choices it's either pursue your career as an athlete in martial arts sport, or train and shape yourself to become a true warrior...
I don't know what you're going to be doing being a "true warrior" When you likely don't face any real danger in life. And you not killing anybody either. You're not going to war to win glory. Take a step down off that pedastal.
@@raykings5244 i disagree with how he phrased it but nothing wrong with conditioning your body. Some day it may come in handy and its healthier than sitting around
I am not an expert but have done karate for some years in the past. I am quite sure that these experienced guys I was training with have a massive advantage if they ever need to defend themselves on the streets. And when it comes to fighting as a sport... Everyone has a different picture of what a healthy sport is. Look at many of the great boxers that have got their brain destroyed. Is that what we should want? Is that a nice retirement being back at the level of a young child? If you want that than try some other sport. There are more than enough options. I am happy karate is a healthy and serious sport 😅
When fighters fought in old school karate tournaments, they fought to win, hurt the opponent, show off, dominant. Now the players fight in tournament, they fight for points. It has gone wayy to much technical. I am learning karate for 3 years now. A few months back an old 79 y/o karate grand master visited our gym... To share his experience. We got the opportunity to sparr with him, i was first. When i get into the matt i was thinking this is a hunched over old man, i got to take it slow with him... Boyy was i wrong, i took the first shot, it did nothing... Then he punched me soo hard that i immediately went to the matt. After this our trainer talked to him to not hit us soo hard and he was visible shocked and disappointed that we are not used to get hit hard in real but only of technical hits. Before leaving he said one thing to us... "Heyy kids, don't get too excited with your skills and get in trouble on the streets... Your going to die, don't even defend yourself, just run"
@@joelxl635 believe me dude, I've never been humbled soo hard before... There I was, a 20 year old, arrogant, hotheaded kid thinking being 6'1 I can one punch anyone, then getting half knocked the fcuk out of my sences by an 80 year old 5'6 Japanese grandpa... Learned a lot that day.
The same goes for judo or other martial arts that tend to be ’’mainstream‘‘. My father in law, who is Japanese born and raised, did learn judo in the 50/60 till he reached 2nd dan. He told me countless time that he doesn’t recognize judo when he watches competitions on TV. Many moves are now forbidden and practitioneers would sometimes come close to fainting during trainings. Watching judo has become really boring.
Modern day karate competitions are just wimpy and hilarious. The first thing that needs to be abandoned is the DQ for "use of excessive force". Such garbage!
I did competitive karate in the late 80s early 90s, on a college team. It definitely was a different game, than the tournaments my son completed in few years ago.
My sensai was an odd guy; Jokey and traditional. For training, he would have me paint his fence, wash his cars and sand his deck a certain way. He had me lock my wrist on each pass. One evening I told him he was treating me like a slave. He asked me to show me what I learned. I proceeded and was taken a back when all that training kicked in. About a month later I was fighting a guy named Johny Lawrence at the All Valley Tournament in California. I won the tourney with a cool kick. I won back my self esteem and the effections of a girl that looks a lot like Elizabeth Shue. A year later I was fighting a guy in Japan. This guy learned karate his whole life, was more athletic than me and looked like a grown man out of college but my 9 months of training gave me the edge I needed to win. I don't even want to talk about me defending my title at the All Valley the following year. I won but it wasn't good.
Yep this is about right. In my last Karate tournament in 2007 I was told that I was too aggressive. In a 2002 Taekwondo tournament I knocked out my opponent because when I went for a roundhouse to the head, he went for a low block and tilted his head down.
This one time a dude was bullied and then a random karate champion saved him from those bullies, he then mentored the kid since he was low on cash. That kid ended up winning a karate tournament but his karate career was halted after another dojo came into town and there was a huge rivalry. He ended up getting into a fight at school and got kicked off the second floor railing and got put into a coma. My prayers go out to his family
I think the flaw that karate has is that it tries so hard to be an Olympic sport and in the process it's ruining itself. It isn't going to be in Olympics no more and I personally hope to see the ruleset turn more aggressive like old times
Every combat art that has joined the Olympics has lost so much of what originally made them effective in the first place. I understand that competition is not a street fight and there needs to be rules but they've all gone too far. Now these arts (karate, tkd, fencing, wrestling) are shadows of their former selves.
@@MMASimplified Agreed. I wish more dojos would follow in the example of Machida Karate & Daido Juku Kudo Karate. Kyokushin has a solid base but needs to bring back head punches and some basic grappling.
Point system ruins many sports, i stop watched boxing after watched Mayweather vs Pacquiao. Mayweather good boxer but his tactics to win by points ruin the fun for watching boxing
That’s the kinda thing that happens to any sport as it evolves. Increased stalemating as all the possibilities get figured out and the level and amount of competition sees less disparity in levels between competitors. …But also I’m pretty sure you could find just as much old footage of nothing but feinting going on if you really wanted to.
I defeated the One Winged Angel himself, Sephiroth, and I can confirm this how things went in the 90s. Back in that day, we had limit breakers and used materia. It was way different back then. Cool music used to play in the background too and you struck a pose at the end if you won.
I love the One Winged Angel music piece. Awesome soundtrack. Before RU-vid, I bought the soundtrack CD, and today I have it in a playlist on RU-vid to listen to while jogging.
The Gracies opened up a school in Brazil where you could actually spar with your students, and now Jiu Jitsu is one of the few traditional martial arts that has a place in competitive tournaments. It does make me wonder what would happen if the karate and tang soo do and wing chun guys actually hit each other.
A modern karate school should be set to the music of Denzel: Don't you know, pump it up You got to pump it up Don't you know pump it up You've got to pump it up Don't you know, pump it up
Bare knuckle karate tournaments were hell on wheels. My hands and feet still feel it… I’m no tough guy at all, but I was a crazy teenager who thought I could do it…. Yikes
As a competitor in Pre-UFC-UFC I can comfortably say that I barely even remember being the actual cause of Bruce lee’s demise as it was far to easy to be considered a fight
This brings back so many memories 53 years in karate trained hard and fast with the injures to show it was very different from what it is now but karate is what we enjoy and take away the politics it’s the same
Are u telling me if I fake getting KO'd I can be a karate master to!? Nothing is standing in my way of being a world champ now...unless I'm fighting a former soccer player.
My uncle used to do Karate in the 80s, got a black belt in it, he used to tell me of how hardcore it was. The first time I saw a tournament in school era, I thought his stories are bullshit. Guess I owe him an apology
I used to do karate way back when. My teacher started us out basic exercises and stances, planks and horse stances in particular. That was barely the beginning and it was already painful. As it went on it just got worse, but also all the more satisfying the sense of achievement at every properly landed blow, the feeling of growth whenever I'd tank hits for longer and long, the satisfying feeling of me actually having steady legs and not tripping up over myself. So much good stuff learned then, I've since forgotten most of what I've learned there, but seeing this just breaks my heart. I'll see if my old aunt still knows if the school I went to is open.
If any of this still disappoints you, there are plenty of heavy- and full-contact rule sets to watch: knockdown, sabaki, all-round fighting, kudo, Shidokan, and until recently, K-1.
Very funny that 87 is old school. when I was in open tournaments the groin was still open and the rules were kiss contact to the face and as hard as you wanted to the body (you could not be disqualified for body shots). Tournament sparring was suppose to approximate real fights as much as possible with rules. So when the groin was removed as a target and more points awarded to kicks and jump kicks - it is very far removed from fighting.
I think it's caused in large part by the fact that the vast majority of real fighters today do MMA .. previously these real fighters did not have much choice and so they worked in such and similar sports.
As someone who is in the practice I always hated international WKF competition training what made it worse is in my dojo we decided to do to remove our old ways of competition fighting and incorporated the WKF fighting 😔
Olympic mutilation of the martial arts is very disappointing. Remember that gold medalist who that lost his medal for an accidental knockout, which was the fault of the defender? Can't wait until Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is brought to the Olympics and casual viewers have to see how many arm snaps, knee tears, and chokeouts there are. Praying that the board doesn't ruin the martial art after that happens.
i quit Kumite because of these new rules. but i practice as an old schooler it's about how you practice it , and not about how it becomes plus : in JKA championships they still use old rules till this day
Taekwondo and Karate used to be effective (not as good as variations of boxing) but the point system has caused a bad reputation and lots of schools only does it for the sport
I get that they want to prevent dangerous, long term injuries like blows to the head, but martial arts in general is about beating your opponent until they can no longer fight or gives up. It's very handy when you're in a war or on the streets in an unavoidable confrontation. Putting in unnecessary rules for safety hurts the roots of martial arts.
I studied for 6 years beginning in 1975 and made my black belt. I’ve fought in many tournaments in the mid to late 70’s. We pulled our punches and kicks but still made contact and FELT EVERYONE OF THEM for days! I’ve have cracked ribs, torn ligaments and parts of me take longer to wake up than others. Then from the 1990’s forward everyone wanted to teach karate. Parents wanted their kids enrolled and enter…the beginning of the time when everybody gets a trophy! And that’s what we have now.
As a practicing southern stylist I weep over what passes for karate today. Inspired by the greats of bare knuckle karate I hang my head in despair over this new generation.
This new generation already existed in Funakoshi’s day. The bare knuckle greats you speak of still exist in the Knockdown styles like Kyokushin and her offshoots - Kyokushin exists because Oyama disagreed with Funakoshi’s commitment to form over sparring and conditioning.
As someone with a 2 kyu brown belt who abandones it exactly for this silliness, I see no difference. The problem with karate has always been, and continued to be, that it's just fancy hand fencing. It treats "ippons" like a deadly blow... problem is, if you lightly flick jab me in the face 12 miliseconds before I get in range, not only have you not done any meaningful damage to me, but the next thing I'll do it sock you in the jack with a hook, and grab an underhook. And at that point the fanciful footwork goes out the window, good luck hopping away. The best way to finish a karate fight is to stop doing karate. The moment you forget about hopping on your feet, throwing punches from your hip, flicking every punch, having a low guard, or a deep stance, you realize just how flexible and liberating fighting can be, and how restricted karate feels. You'll realize that you learned like, 4 or 5 "blocks", but in reality active blocking is almost useless, and that nobody has time to throw 5 age-ukes (for those that don't know, literally blowing upwards with your forearm like a dingus) because your opponent threw a 5 punch combo... not to mention, good luck blucking a thigh kick with a gedan barai. I hope you don't have a strong attachment to your forearms. It's hilarious to see actual karate practitioners like GSP, Machida or Wonderboy basically forget everything but the footwork as soon as they start fighting. Almost like it's not an actual martial art, just an antiquated imitation of it taught by elderly men to wannabes.
Karate could have been the baddest striking art to ever have been developed by man but it's competition never got its balls out of its purse... in original Karate competition they threw Dynamic strikes plus judo throws and that made it incredible but the fact that you couldn't strike to the face with a hand made it ridiculous
