Well, what’s karate?
There are differences between karate styles, but karate is a graduated series of exercises that are designed to produce students who can defend themselves, using either techniques associated with sparring (if the attack is at distance) or techniques embedded in the kata (if the attack is up-close and personal, or if it involves weapons).
Does karate contain the most effective series of graduated exercises for unarmed self-defense?
On that issue, opinions differ.
As a matter of fact, on that issue, tempers flare!
Now, I know some guys who could use karate techniques to defend themselves against Sherman Tanks.
But some folks believe that only mixed martial artists, or boxers, or wrestlers, or Gracie guys can fight, and that karate guys can’t.
Now, I know that some karate guys can fight, and they fight well. Both at distance, and up close and personal.
But I ran into some well-written articles that takes the position, roughly speaking, that the study of karate is a waste of time.
For now, here are the articles: and remember, I disagree with them!
And remember, the core of the argument that’s being made below is the definition of “traditional karate”. I’ll be talking about the arguments in them one, by one, by one, over the next few weeks.
But the guy writes well, you gotta give him that, even if you disagree with his conclusions!
And if the link gets broken, the article I’m talking about is written by W. R. Mann, and the topic is why traditional karate is useless for self-defense.
