Found this on the net, what do you think? I think it makes sense.

"Machida Karate is a modified style developed by his father Yoshizo. In fact I don't they call it Shotokan any more, they call it Machida karate, though it is a Shotokan offshoot. Remember as well Machida has also trained in Sumo, wrestling in Japan and at AKA, Muay Thai in Thailand and has a Brazilian jiujitsu black belt, so there's more to his personal style than karate. Karate is certainly the unique ingredient that makes him hard to beat, but karate alone obviously will not make you Lyoto Machida."





Traditional typical Shotokan training:

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Lyoto Machida training:

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it is shotokan karate..what he did he added a few techniques (his father) because most of the brazillians are taller than him..but the style is shotokan...even when he fought evans he had that shotokan stance...also not every shotokan school trains the same..some do full contact real hard karate some clubs cant be that hard because its family orianted..it depens where u go..but shotokan definetly has got a great background of good fighters.

Akuma > Ryu.

Machida uses Shotokan. Of course he is gonna train differently and fight differently because its MMA. It has rules. Shotokan is used for self-defense, real combat. If he used real Shotokan in the cage, he would be DQ'd every fight.

You see, he tried to use a snap kick(isn't really effective without shoes on) against Rashad and almost caught Rashad clear in family jewels. So of course he had to modify it.

Traditional Shotokan's movement is/was north-south, what Machida added was lateral movement, that's the biggest difference. Muay Thai is known for their shin kicks, its what seperates them from the other stand-up arts, but Karate also uses their shin to strike, but not with the consistency of Muay Thai.

The stand-up arts that involve kicking and I'm most familiar with are Shotokan Karate, Tae Kwon do and Muay Thai. And the way you can tell which is which, is first, their stance and the angle of their kicks.

Out of the three, I think Tae Kwon do is the prettiest to watch. They've got some bad@ss lookin' kicks.

i don';t know anyhting about shotokan, but i can sure see the muay thai and japanese wrestling machida has mixed in. whatever it's called, his style works

yeah, I don't really see a whole lot of muay thai influence to his fighting.

His stance is to wide & low, his arms too low, his footwork too active & mobile for it to be muay thai. Well, it actually looks a little like Saenchai Sor Kingstar, but Saenchai's a real oddity & does a lot of things that are "no nos" in orthodox muay thai.

He throws roundkicks on the thai pads, but the knee bend & using the instep to strike are definite ear marks of karate kicking (General Choi of TKD was a 2nd dan in Shotokan under Funakoshi himself).

I really like watching him fight & train. He pulls off a lot of stuff that mma logic has long said will get you killed. Really drives home the message that every approach is valid as long as you know when & how to use it.

Afaik his father is his Karate teacher, but he has a Muay Thai trainer as well.

Of course he also wrestles and trains BJJ.