Ok so im bored, and want to talk about something i really enjoy in a place im familiar with...
Here!
And also Martial arts!
Who has experience? Interrest?
Im not talking just Karate, Kung fu, Capoeira.
Kickboxing, boxing, wrestling and other forms of unarmed weaponary styles are also very much considered martial art.
What is yours? And which one do you admire? Care to share something? Stories? Anything?
Im starting this topic cus i have a small story, but recently ive started kickboxing which sparked my interrest back into martial arts.
In anycase, please do tell me anything of your knowledge. Few things to remember, everyone does the same style differently. One may even brake rules of said style to better express oneself.
Skip my story if you just want a quick read.
My StoryOk here it goes. Ever since i was 10, i started training in karate. This was pretty standard. First few days were with other kids, but as days past ive noticed the number of other equal aged kids were vanishing til after a month. From there i was training with teens. Teens that were on the same grade level. Before i go further, you should know that my teacher was a short, bald, very polite and very good karate instructor. Altough short, he is incredibly fast. But i couldnt help but feel he was not exactly teaching us HIS karate. Because he consisted of having momentum, instead of locking your self into a stance. Just that detail gave me an idea of subtle meneuvers that the movement we are forcing ourselfs to do and how it actualy helps on our ability to throw a punch/kick. I was so invested in these subtle details ive noticed something very little people consider.
Karate has a very linear looking stance, which in turn if one knows how to use it, can make for an unpredictable dynamic stance. And that is because one stance can do many things, even transition to another stance.
So here are the subtleties related to Karate. Every punch, every kick, every counter/grab meneuver is excersized extensively. For those other people who trained karate, you should know how tedious it can be to train karate. But the idea is very simple. You can use one or two moves multiple times. Versus another experienced fighter, few moves gives false sense of linearity. Making you suddenly unpredictable when you change stance or do something very different like maybe that infamous falling dropkick/axekick. This is how i took karate, and greatly made me appriciate doing 50 times Oi-Zuki.
Another thing related to karate is how were trained to move forward, were always long ranged. There is no casual blocking for points like a sport. Blocking is a form of an offense. It is either punch the punches, or counter-punch. If you look at images of karate stances, they look like they make you spread your legs way too long, or impracticaly. In videos, you can see profesional karate users jump step into stances. even though the stance makes the user imobiles, his ability to jump a meter or 2 with a stance. This makes the user have to COMMIT to what he does. There is no second guessing. Which means when blocking, one has to commit to counter. So lets say, you the profesional karate user, wants to step forward and because of that step forward, you know he will defend himself, but this time you are sure he will throw a punch. So... Step forward, Ready counter punch. If nothing happened, nothing happened. Change the plans. If he threw a punch, your in luck. If he kicks your allready in defence for it. This is also something i took of karate. Commitment. Without it, the punches, kicks or whatever will only be half as powerfull.
Here are the subtleties ive noticed that can translate anywhere
Vision!!!
Ive noticed something i dislike highly of kickboxing. Kickboxing consists of Proper Boxing with the tought of kicks. Incredibly effective, because Boxing is allready an awesome martial arts, but combine it with kicks you are pretty much set. (There are some russian military CQC martial arts ide say proove to be most effective in modern day world IMHO) But their stance, i hate it. Not their legs, not their posture. But their hands. Its infront of their face. Its defencive reasons, but also for sport to not give any blow to their opponents. What this makes though, is it makes you blind.
You have probably seen boxing matches, MMA or just movies where they start blocking their stomach/head area with their arms to the sides over those areas. They ofcourse have to drop and lift to protect either the side of the head or stomach but it makes the person defending Incredibly blind. A kick can come in and they wont see it coming because of their own arm. One can just lightly make the person flinch his arm closer to block his own vision, giving you the opportunity to kick from where he cant see.
Im actualy glad i was tought to have my arms down. Ofcourse, defencively less effective, but reactivly more effective.
One more thing, and that is something i want most or ALL people to know.
Your punches comes from the very ground. It comes from your foot. Then your leg, then your hips, body, arm and then hand. I noticed this with Karates standard "Zenkutsu-Dachi" stance.
Mike tysons mentality was "To punch through my opponents". And it is a very agreable statement coming from a then after dirty fighter. But there is one thing wrong about it. It being a mentality.
It shoudlnt be. You can see alot of people using this in boxing also, but i dont know if people actualy feel its usefullness.
*When you throw a punch, with a stance where you have a leading leg, and a back leg. That Back leg should push you forward. The leading leg is simply support. Karates demo of this is pushing. When you push an object, you dont use both your legs. One is ahead, the other is back. That back leg is what you want when you throw a punch. That same effect of pushing should be in the punch. Just with support of the front leg.
What will this do? It will give you extra centimeters of reach, but most prominently 3 times stronger punch. Because you expect to punch whatever you want at where you feel it will connect. But because of that push, you will go few centimeters deeper than expected. Pushing yourself stronger than you image yourself to be. If you have a punching bag or something that reacts and can show the effect of punching like you used to, and punching with the pushing effect. Hard to explain in text...*
Anyways... Back to my Story
With all that in mind, my teacher actualy noticed my method. He gave me double grades, and then put me in adult sessions. This was so suprising to me. Yett very difficult. In these sessions, the teacher noticed another thing... Thats when things get very very sad...
In adult sessions, everything is very exhausting. That 1 hour of training is soo hard. It feels like 3 hours. And because of my exhaustion, revealing mistakes and weakneses. And he noticed something GRAVE that made me stop excersising Karate completely.
I was flat footed. How i liked to call it. My knees were a bit angled, which made my feet not straight whenever i walked. This was obviouse specialy in karate stances and in exhuastion.
We found out that excessive feet excersises like i did, or cycling and stuff like that. Was very harmful to my condition. I mean.... No wonder i was the only one who had burning knees after riding a bike. So, at the age of 14 i stopped Training Karate, which also made me stop excersizing anything really. Started becoming a whimp, just underweight and thin. Parents always begged me to excersize in gyms, you know with apparatus and stuff but never could do it. I needed something dynamic, something that prooves to be practical. Did tennis for a few months. Not as cool as Martial arts... In anycase, i had to wear something underneat my foot whenever i had shoes on which did help e straighten my legs and knees more.
But my condition isnt permanent. I can still feel it, still is pretty visible, not as much as before. But currently, at my age now ive taken up on kickboxing classes. I feel that same feeling ive had again. Just downright momentum and achieving self expression. By that i mean, being able to do 10 momentous high kicks in a quick and actual flurry. It looks stupid in your mind if you think about it, but it looks incredible when you see someone great at it. Just achieving that sense of control again is something im aching for.
My karate training is still in my habits and in my head from 7 years ago.
And I heard once that the teacher became norwegians Karate representative. (dont know if he is currently)
Basically, I really love karate. Alot of people underestimate it (even those who use it). But i see so much warfare/battle abuse it can do.
I really admire Capoeira. Its got an unpredictable flow that is very fun to try out.
The martial arts behind it is what is lacking to me. I mean, Karate and Capoeira are like super contrast to eachother.
This is also a reason why i love fighting games. For characters that have Karate training, usualy have this very stubborn looking move set and playstyle. Look at Jin from tekken 3 but most prominently 4. His Karate is very standard, not multiple stance heavy at all. Very relaxed, careless one may say. But that is to go with his personality.
Another Karate Character is Makoto from street fighter 4. Her personality relates her Karate style more torwards kyokushin karate. But her moves seem to look alot more like the Traditional karate. Alot of her attacks are very accurate to the actual protraiyal of karate attacks. The only reason this karate is a made up one is to suit the 2D nature. I mean... an UP PUNCH?!?! A litteral Axe kick from Mid air? ok... But makoto is probably the most prominent looking and playing karate character.
Another character with prominent looking karate, but doesnt exactly have too different of a gameplay from the rest of the characters (cus dead or alive) is Hitomi from Dead or Alive. Look up a video if you please. Just not beach volleyball.
Here is a fun thing to notice. Each of these characters are just fictional. Artists made them. And each of these characters i mentioned do something very similar. They like to do this motion with their arms. Its crossing them quickly and then back again. This is actualy a typical motion one can do in karate, and thats because... imho its like refreshing your momentum. If you ever tried weilding a sword, you cant stand to hold it in place, you feel like you need to move it. In most cases there is this unnecesary seeming spin most people do when holding a sword. Its just refreshing your momentum which i tought is a neat gesture and for karate, looks pretty unique. Most or many other fighting styles do the same.
Do you have anything to contribute? Cus ide love to hear something coming from a different experience.
